


Freezer Burn

by notsafeforowls



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [3]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22234393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsafeforowls/pseuds/notsafeforowls
Summary: Mick hates zombies. He hates freezers even more.
Relationships: Nate Heywood/Mick Rory
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1403035
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	Freezer Burn

**Author's Note:**

> For the “locked in a freezer” square of my Bad Things Happen Bingo card.

Nate’s rambling. Some endless stream of consciousness that started with him complaining about the zombies and has now reached, “I won’t who’s going to find us. When we split up, Behrad and Charlie were going to try and find the other zombies, so they shouldn’t even be in the area. John and Ava went looking for the guy who’s been doing the resurrections, so maybe it’s going to be Sara and Ray. Or Nora. She was trying to find out how to re-kill the zombies.” 

For the most part, Mick ignores him. He’s almost tuned out the rant about _why are freezers this cold, they don’t need to be this cold when there’s nothing in them, this has to be colder than we needed it to be set at_. Privately, though, Mick agrees with that part. 

Mick can’t remember ever liking the cold. He’s sure that he did at some point – a long time ago, there were photos of him as a child, playing in the snow with his mom; five years old and wrapped up in the warmest clothes he wore. Central City’s coldest winter ever, according to records (according to Nate) but Mick’s sure he’s experienced colder ones. Those ones as a teenager had been the worst. Lingering in the city until he absolutely had to go home and face his dad, then the ones after the fire when he hadn’t always had anywhere to go. 

Nothing had been colder than the meat locker, though. The second that door had closed behind him, right after he’d heard Brad laugh, it had started to set in. Bone deep and terrifying. Even now, Mick can’t think of anything that scares him anywhere near as much as that. It was worse than being underwater. Worse than anything the Time Masters had done to him. 

Worse even than when Snart had left him in those woods, when Mick had felt the same cold sinking in, his fingers half numb as he searched for something, anything, to keep him alive. When he’d thought he was going to die there, so cold that he could hardly feel his fingers, barely feel the warmth of blood across his hands. 

The lighting is greenish and makes everything look dead. Nate’s sitting against the wall, his collar pulled up around his ears, and Mick wants to tell him to get up and _do something_ because if he falls asleep, Mick isn’t dragging his frozen ass out of here. Isn’t dragging a body out of here. 

“I hate zombies,” Nate says, his voice shaky. “I hate smart zombies even more. How did they even make it look like they’d tripped the trap? They’re supposed to be reanimated corpses!” 

There’s got to be something more to them. Weasel and his stupid, incorrect information. Mick hates John. He hates zombies. He hates walk-in freezers. He hates the cold. 

Mick kicks at the bottom of the door. There’s no movement outside, no signs of life or zombies. No sign of any of the other Legends either. Typical. He can’t get rid of them most of the time, and now they’re nowhere to be seen. He tries the handle again, even though he knows it’s hopeless. It’s stuck tight. These things can only be opened from the outside and the doors are supposed to be anchored to the wall on the other side if someone’s inside. That was the point of the trap. Trick the zombies in with fresh meat, shut them in, and then leave them. 

So now he and Nate are stuck with the remains of a deer and no way out until someone finds them. If someone finds them. Maybe they’ll freeze to death in here. Mick touches his hand to the glass. The walls look cold-dry, unsafe to touch, coated with ice. Mick thinks about freezer burn and how ice spreads. 

“Hey, are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.” Stupid plan. Stupid zombies. Stupid team, probably too busy getting themselves into trouble to notice that they’re even gone. Or maybe the zombies have trapped them in a freezer as well. That would be bad, Mick has to admit. Gideon’s great but she can’t really leave the ship. 

“You don’t look it.” Nate pats at the floor beside him. It looks cold. “Come on, sit down. You’re freaking me out.” 

“I’m fine,” Mick repeats as he sits down. Not because Nate’s freaking out. Just because he knows that there’s no use in staring out at nothing and waiting for someone to save them. The cold seeps through his clothes as soon as he sits down, like it thinks it’s coming home, like it remembers that time in the meat locker. 

“If you say so.” Nate scoots forward before he shuffles closer to Mick’s side to lean against him, wringing his hands. He’s not wearing gloves, even though it’s the middle of winter in Chicago outside. There’s a mark on one of his fingers where he touched the wall with his bare hand, where the cold burned him. Mick tries not to stare at it. It looks raw. His eyes close as he settles in, letting out a quiet sigh. “I'm fine too, by the way. Other than the whole dying in a freezer thing. Which, by the way, is a really shitty way to go when you’ve been choked to death by a demon.” 

“Don’t go to sleep or you won’t wake up.” Standing in the middle of the meat locker, trying to keep his eyes open, trying to stay on his feet, because Mick’s never been much for education, but even at fifteen he’d remembered being told once that if you fall asleep when you’re freezing cold, then you die where you lie. Nate keeps his eyes closed. Mick kicks at his foot, hard enough that Nate makes an annoyed sound. 

Nate opens his eyes. Blinks twice and presses his chin against Mick’s shoulder. His eyes look more green than blue under the light. “You sound like this isn’t the first time you’ve done this.” 

“I got locked in one of these things when I was a kid.” He says it like it’s not a big deal. Just a small traumatic experience. It almost is. Shitty father, locked in a meat locker, spent time on the streets, thrown in Iron Heights for the first time weeks after he was old enough to be sent there, abandoned in some frozen hell hole by his best (only) friend, tortured by the Time Masters. 

“Your dad locked you in a freezer?” 

Mick almost laughs at that. His old man had done a lot of things, but locking Mick in anything, let alone a meat locker, had never been his thing. He’d preferred fire over ice. “Not him. A kid I went to school with. We were on a field trip to a slaughterhouse and he thought it would be funny to lock me in one of the meat lockers.” 

Nate’s warm, so damn warm beside him, and Mick knows that it has to be in his head. It’s too cold in here for Nate to be anywhere near as warm as he feels, and it’s not as if Nate’s that great as keeping himself warm on a good day, but Mick’s happy to maintain the illusion as Nate presses closer to him. As long as Nate’s awake. As long as neither one of them is alone in the cold. 

“That sucks.” 

“I thought he was my friend,” Mick admits. Brad had been his friend. One of the last ones who had stuck around after the fire, after everyone in school had known about _that weird Rory kid who killed his mom and dad_ , and the only time anyone had spoken to him had been to mock him for it. And, just in case Nate gets a bit too curious, he adds, “I killed him for it.” 

It had been so cold in that meat locker. So damn cold. He’d thought he’d die in there. And then—then one of the workers had opened the door, screaming about how some idiot hadn’t been paying attention, and Mick had decided that he’d never be cold again. He’d burned down Brad’s house. He’d waited until Brad’s parents were out of town, until the babysitter was running later (as usual) and Mick had locked the doors. 

Brad had made him freeze, so Mick had made him burn. It’s almost poetic, really. Mick had been warm, so warm as he watched that house burn. It hadn’t felt good. He’d heard the screams and hadn’t been able to stop imagining what was happening inside. But he’d been warm and that had been all that mattered. 

Nate nods, like he’s not surprised that Mick killed Brad, and maybe he isn’t. Maybe he’s heard enough from Sara and Ray and Gideon and even Mick himself that he knows that Mick’s fight or flight mode doesn’t involve anything other than violence. Injure or kill, and then flee. Injure or kill, and stay. 

The earpiece crackles to life in the silence. 

“So, it turns out that zombies are smarter than we gave them credit for,” Behrad says, as if he’s discussing the damn weather. “Are the two of you okay? Because some of them tried to lock me in a walk-in freezer!” 

Nate stifles his laughter. “Yeah, buddy, that’s what they managed to do to us.” 

“Oh, wow. Okay, I’ll get Charlie and we’ll be there in about ten minutes. Word of warning: if we run into more zombies on the way, she will show up as one. I’m not being held hostage or anything.” 

Mick touches his gloves to the floor, listening to the low hum of the lights as the earpiece goes silent once again. They’re not going to die here. That’s good. Mick lets out a slow breath and watches it fog in front of him. Still cold. The dead, half-frozen deer, is still surrounded by frozen blood in the middle of the floor. The things in the meat locker – he can’t even remember what they were now – had been cold and stuff when he’d bumped against them. 

Nate nudges him lightly, taking hold of his sleeve to make sure he’s got his attention. Mick looks at that red spot on his finger again. 

“We can set something on fire when we get out of here. Something big. Not the zombies, though. I think we’re going to need to rebury the bodies because they have families, but we can burn down an abandoned building or something.” Nate smiles. “Hey, maybe we can find an abandoned slaughter house or somewhere with a freezer we can burn, too.” 

“You don’t even like burning things.” He shouldn’t burn anything without it being part of a mission. Definitely shouldn’t burn things when his teammates are around. Mick has rules about these things. It’s how he keeps himself under control. But, oh, it’s so damn cold, and if he looks at the walls for too long, it’s going to feel like they’re closing in. 

Nate shrugs. “It’s cold. A fire seems like a good idea right now.” 

Yes, it really does. 

“I’ll show you how to light a proper one, not that campfire bullshit you like so much.” 

The freezer feels a little warmer as Nate launches into his complaint about _excuse me, my campfires are great, even Ray says they’re great and he has badges in campfire building, or whatever it’s called_. 


End file.
